20 best movies like We Bought a Zoo (2011)

When Chef Carl Casper suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner, he is left to figure out what's next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife, his friend and his son to launch a food truck. Taking to the road, Chef Carl goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen -- and zest for life and love.

A girl, abandoned by her mother when she was three, moves to a small town in Florida with her father. There, she adopts an orphaned dog she names Winn-Dixie. The bond between the girl and her special companion brings together the people in a small Florida town and heals her own troubled relationship with her father.

Ramona is a little girl with a very big imagination and a nose for mischief. Her playful antics keep everyone in her loving family on their toes, including her older sister Beezus, who's just trying to survive her first year of high school. Through all the ups and downs of childhood, Ramona and Beezus learn that anything's possible when you believe in yourself and rely on each other.

After a distastrous first date for caterer Holly and network sports director Messer, all they have is common is a dislike for each other and their love for their goddaughter Sophie. But when they suddenly become all Sophie has in this world, Holly and Messer must set their differences aside. Juggling careers and social calendars, they'll have to find common ground while living under the same roof.

When Manny Singer's wife dies, his young daughter Molly becomes mute and withdrawn. To help cope with looking after Molly, he hires sassy housekeeper Corrina Washington, who coaxes Molly out of her shell and shows father and daughter a whole new way of life. Manny and Corrina's friendship delights Molly and enrages the other townspeople.

The film follows a man with an unwanted gift for healing who meets a teenager with cancer who helps him to find himself.

Sara and Brian live an idyllic life with their young son and daughter. But their family is rocked by sudden, heartbreaking news that forces them to make a difficult and unorthodox choice in order to save their baby girl's life. The parents' desperate decision raises both ethical and moral questions and rips away at the foundation of their relationship. Their actions ultimately set off a court case that threatens to tear the family apart, while revealing surprising truths that challenge everyone's perceptions of love and loyalty and give new meaning to the definition of healing.

A childless couple bury a box in their backyard, containing all of their wishes for an infant. Soon, a child is born, though Timothy Green is not all that he appears.

A busy executive learns during a meeting that his mother may be dying and rushes home to her side. He ends up being his father's caretaker and becomes closer to him than ever before. Estranged from his own son, the executive comes to realize what has been missing in his own life.

A young boy fighting cancer writes letters to God, touching lives in his neighborhood and inspiring hope among everyone he comes in contact. An unsuspecting substitute postman, with a troubled life of his own, becomes entangled in the boy's journey and his family by reading the letters. They inspire him to seek a better life for himself and his own son he's lost through his alcohol addiction.

Christopher Robin, the boy who had countless adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood, has grown up and lost his way. Now it’s up to his spirited and loveable stuffed animals, Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and the rest of the gang, to rekindle their friendship and remind him of endless days of childlike wonder and make-believe, when doing nothing was the very best something.

An eccentric socialite raises a gorilla as her son.

In 1976, a lower-middle-class teenager struggles to cope living with her neurotic family of nomads on the outskirts of Beverly Hills.

Focuses on the lives of residents in the fictional London suburb of Charnham.

Five-time Emmy nominee and Golden Globe winner Henry Winkler stars in The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, the story of what happens when you open your heart to the power of Christmas. Disenchanted single mom Jennifer Cullen (Brooke Burns) is a Scroogette when it comes to anything Christmas. In fact, even her six-year-old son, Brian, is having trouble believing in Santa Claus. But when her Uncle Ralph (Henry Winkler) visits and brings a fellow passenger from his flight named Morgan Derby (Warren Christie), Jennifer s dubious heart awakens to the possibility that perhaps Christmas really does hold miracles. It s uplifting and laugh-packed and a story that will inspire the whole family to believe.

Ollie Trinke is a young, suave music publicist who seems to have it all, with a new wife and a baby on the way. But life deals him a bum hand when he's suddenly faced with single fatherhood, a defunct career and having to move in with his father. To bounce back, it takes a new love and the courage instilled in him by his daughter.

A working girl from New Jersey looks for love with a fast-lane Manhattan salesman from Queens.

A poor New York resident, who is of Indian origin, dreams of becoming a fast car race driver. He endeavors, and his efforts are rewarded when he selected by a little-known group called 'RACING SADDLES'. He joins them and soon becomes their ace race driver. This man, whose name is Rajveer, then meets with a rich American woman, also of Indian origin, whose name is Radhika. Both fall in love with each other. They cannot get married, because Radhika's family hates Rajveer mainly because he is very poor. But Radhika is very stubborn, so she marries him. She loses all her rights to her family's wealth. They get married and become parents of two children. They also become very rich. Then Rajveer has an accident which changes their lives forever. They get into debt and stand to lose everything. Will Radhika be forced to return back to her family?

Teenager Homer Macauley stays at home in small-town Ithaca to support his family while his older brother Marcus prepares to go to war.

Holly stopped believing in Santa Claus after her wish to meet the man of her dreams never came true. So Santa sets her up with Ryan, who isn't entirely truthful about himself. Now Holly faces a dilemma: marry her current boyfriend, Ted, or fall in love with someone who has lied to her.

After his crew breaks up, a gifted but insecure hip-hop dancer teaches at a top ballet school in Paris, where he falls for an aspiring ballerina.

The tale of a ten-year-old boy in a Catholic school who, following the death of his beloved grandfather, embarks on a quest to discover the meaning of life.

Fifteen years ago, Ben Walker made a decision to leave his college sweetheart and ultimately his faith, in order to pursue a lucrative business opportunity. Now with a high-paying career and a trophy fiancé, he is visited by an angel, who gives him a glimpse into what his life would look like had he followed his calling.

A man without attachments or responsibilities suddenly finds himself with an abandoned baby and leaves for London to try and find the mother. Eight years later after he and his daughter become inseparable Gloria's mother reappears.

With the help of her coach, her parents, and the boy who drives the Zamboni machine, nothing can stop Casey from realizing her dream to be a champion figure skater.

Bill Dancer and his young companion Curly Sue are the classic homeless folks with hearts of gold. Their scams are aimed not at turning a profit, but at getting enough to eat. When they scam the rich and beautiful Grey Ellison into believing she backed her Mercedes into Bill, they're only hoping for a free meal. But Grey is touched, and over the objections of her snotty fiancé.

A blind man has an operation to regain his sight at the urging of his girlfriend and must deal with the changes to his life.

The classic Shirley Temple film in which a little girl goes in search of her father who is reported missing by the military during the Second Boer War.

A Taiwanese-American man is happily settled in New York with his American boyfriend. He plans a marriage of convenience to a Chinese woman in order to keep his parents off his back and to get the woman a green card. Chaos follows when his parents arrive in New York for the wedding.

Whenever trouble strikes in one of her relationships, single mother Mary Jo Walker and her daughter, Ava, pack up and move to another city, a routine Ava is tiring of. This time, they are helped on their move to San Diego by trucker Jack Ranson. While Ava settles in, getting a leading part in the school play, Jack starts dating Mary Jo but soon reveals himself to be controlling and aggressive. Mary Jo prepares to flee again, angering Ava.

Chanel, Dorinda, and Aqua, are off to India to star in a Bollywood movie. But when there they discover that they will have to compete against each other to get the role in the movie. Will the Cheetah's break up again?

After his wife died a man refuses to go out and doesn't want to talk to his only son. Life has no meaning for him. One day his son finds a baby pelican and decides to leave the bird at home. Pelican helps the boy find his father again and revive him back to life ...

Welcome to Fuller Junction, Wisconsin, a friendly small town settled by Norwegian farmers. Here we see the exploits of two young cousins, Selma and Arnold, who learn about their world and experience the ups and downs of life as the season pass.

Ever since her parents left her as a baby, little Annie has led a hard-knock life with her calculating foster mother, Miss Hannigan. However, all that changes when hard-nosed billionaire and mayoral candidate Will Stacks takes her in on the recommendation of his advisers. Stacks believes that he's Annie's guardian angel, but the plucky youngster's confidence and sunny outlook may mean that Annie will save Will instead.

Mike Leigh’s much praised 2010 tragicomical drama. During a year, a very content couple approaching retirement are visited by friends and family less happy with their lives.

After a "white lie" which spirals out of control, a neurotic, naive and musically gifted Muslim cleric's eldest son must follow through with an arranged marriage, except he is madly in love with an Australian born-Lebanese girl.

Set in the 1970's, MIGHTY FINE is the story of Joe Fine (Chazz Palminteri) a charismatic, high-spirited man, who relocates his family--wife Stella (Andie MacDowell), a Holocaust survivor, daughters Nathalie (Jodelle Ferland) and Maddie (Rainey Qualley)--from Brooklyn to New Orleans, in search of a better life. Unfortunately, Joe's spending spree is wildly out of touch with reality, as his apparel business is teetering on the brink of collapse, a fact he refuses to accept. Written and directed by Debbie Goodstein, MIGHTY FINE is told from the perspective of an adult Nathalie remembering the events of her youth, and is inspired by Goodstein's memories of her own father. MIGHTY FINE ultimately shows how coming to terms with the past without judgment is the most fruitful way to move toward the future.

Soon-to-be-wed graduate student Finn Dodd develops cold feet when she suspects her fiancé is cheating on her. In order to clear her head, Finn visits her grandmother, Hy, and great aunt, Glady Joe Cleary, in Grasse, Calif. There, Finn learns that Hy and Glady Joe are members of a group of passionate quilters, and over the course of her visit she is regaled with tales of love and life by women who have collected rich experiences and much wisdom.

A recently-widowed science fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative 6-year-old abandoned and socially-rejected boy who says he's really from Mars.

After the unexpected death of their daughter, a couple work to build a state of the art children's hospital where families are welcomed into the healing process.

A boozy Broadway actress comes out of a 12-week cure to face the problems of her best friends as well as her needy daughter. She tries to balance the terrors of returning to work with the demands of all around her with humor and insight, while staying off the booze.

When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.

The death of the Kimbrough family matriarch affects the three male survivors of the clan. Widower Easy tries to reconnect with his old flame, Marg. Eldest son and struggling musician Guy moves back to town, feeling guilty that he missed the funeral. His brother, Beagle, who was his mother's caretaker, falls for Marg's granddaughter, Georgia, a chronically ill girl who fears her time is growing short.

Heaven is for Real recounts the true story of a small-town father who must find the courage and conviction to share his son's extraordinary, life-changing experience with the world. Four-year-old Colton shares the details of his amazing journey with childlike innocence and speaks matter-of-factly about things that happened before his birth... things he couldn't possibly know.

A world-weary college professor is given a life-changing diagnosis and decides to throw all pretense and conventions to the wind and live his life as boldly and freely as possible with a biting sense of humor, a reckless streak and a touch of madness.

The story revolves around three soldiers — Colee, T.K. and Cheaver — who return from the Iraq War after suffering injuries and learn that life has moved on without them. They end up on an unexpected road trip across the U.S.

Substance-addicted Hollywood actress, Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who still treats her like a child. Despite these and other problems, Suzanne begins to see the funny side of her situation, and also realises that not only do daughters have mothers—mothers do too.

Steven Lidz, unhappy with his home life since his mother became sick, moves in with his two eccentric uncles. As Steven grows closer to his uncles, he learns how to cope with his emotions and to value his own uniqueness.

A young widow discovers that her late husband has left her 10 messages intended to help ease her pain and start a new life.

Patch Adams is a doctor who doesn't look, act or think like any doctor you've met before. For Patch, humour is the best medicine and he's willing to do just anything to make his patients laugh—even if it means risking his own career.